Welcome to Daylight Savings time
This Sunday is known as Laetare Sunday. Laetare is a Latin word meaning “rejoice.” Why rejoice? We are close to celebrating the Easter mystery. Jesus Christ is gloriously alive. And because He lives, we live.
Today's word of God challenges us to look beyond appearances, and with the gift of faith, discover three realities:
Jesus as the light who illumines the purpose of life;
ourselves as a light to others in our attitudes and behaviors; and
our fellow human beings as bearers of the light or presence of God. No matter how hidden that presence may be, "seek and you shall find."
The word of God takes us back over 3,000 years. King Saul made a mess of things. God inspired Samuel to look for another king. At first, David is overlooked. He’s the youngest in a family of eight brothers, an unlikely choice.
Think of how unlikely some leaders in our country have appeared to many people. George Washington looked downright unfriendly with his false teeth. Someone compared Lincoln's face to a trowel. FDR was wheel-chair bound. Yet, they accomplished much.
The unlikely David became king of ancient Israel. God saw in David his potential to accomplish great things. Today’s word challenges us to look beyond appearances in people and try to bring out their best qualities by affirming them.
Paul in his letter to the Christian community in Ephesus, Turkey, reflects upon light and darkness. Light can transform a cold night into a warm day. Light enables us to study, to discover, to behold the wonders of God’s universe. In short, light warms, nurtures, sustains, reveals and cheers. Paul urges us to live in light, pleasing God in our attitudes and behaviors.
Saint John Henry Newman captured Jesus as light in a wonderful poem which became a hymn:
"Lead, Kindly Light, amidst th'encircling gloom,
Lead Thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home,
Lead Thou me on! ….
Often, people are in darkness about their purpose, and forget that Jesus illumines our path into eternal life. We too are called to be light, to let our life shine forth with virtues such as honesty, integrity, responsibility, courage.
In the Gospel, Jesus cures a blind man: He opens the eyes of this man so that he can see reality. But notice how blind some of the characters in this story were. Blinded by protocol – how dare Jesus heal on the Sabbath! They were blind to the power of God in Jesus. The parents too were blind in their fears.
The Gospel author challenges us to see Jesus, through the lens of faith, as the light who illumines the purpose of life.
I think of a twentieth century monk, Thomas Merton, who let the light of God illumine his life, who became a light to others in his attitudes and behaviors and who saw in his fellow human beings and all creation the light or presence of God.
Merton's chance encounter with a classic philosophical book about the Christian understanding of God changed his life. He went with a friend, Robert Lax, to St. Bonaventure University, a Franciscan sponsored school in upstate New York, where he became an instructor of English. He eventually applied to join the Franciscan friars but was rejected. A friend advised Merton about the Trappists. Off he went to the abbey in Kentucky where he was based for the rest of his life.
The abbey's mantra was ora et labora (pray and work). Merton wrote dozens of books, poems and articles, and corresponded with religious thinkers and cultural icons, political movers and shakers and people of different faiths or no faith. All of us, he argued, are children of God. Faithful to his Catholic tradition, Merton was always open to the truth in other faiths.
Merton strove to live a life of prayer, of intimacy with God: chanting the psalms, celebrating the Eucharist, and doing such practices as the stations of the cross and the rosary. Above all, he sought solitude and contemplation: that center within where he could feel God's love sustaining him. Buddhist techniques, for example, helped him find that inner stillness.
In his work Seeds of Contemplation, Merton noted that noise, more than anything else, blocks out the voice of God within us. Merton asked for the grace to clear his mind of earthly “concerns” so that in solitude he could move beyond thoughts and words into a felt awareness of the presence of God within himself. There he would sit still and listen to God's voice.
Yes, he sought to find his true self in God: God abiding in him and he abiding in God. Moreover, Merton sensed the oneness of God all about him, in all creatures and all creation: all were holy. The light of God in all creatures simply had to be made visible.
Our Lenten task, Merton might say, is to let the light of God become manifest within ourselves so that others can see beyond appearances the light of God in our attitudes and behaviors. Amen!
